E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

EYEWEAR'S POET PENNY BOXALL WINS £20,000 FOR THE BIENNIAL EDWIN MORGAN POETRY AWARD FOR SHIP OF THE LINE ! WE ARE OVER THE MOON!

Big money for a poem, out of Montreal... does anyone recall the 2011 winner?  Pity, as they won $50,000 for their poem. This from the press release: The 2013 Montreal International Poetry Prize is now open. Our new editorial board of ten poets from across the globe will select approximately 80 poems for our longlist and some 50 poems for the 2013 Global Poetry Anthology. This is a great chance to have some of the world's most experienced and active poets read your work. For those among you who are already established, this is an excellent opportunity to call attention to your latest efforts. We think you’ll agree that the 2013 Editorial Board is smashing: Mary Dalton (Canada), Keki Daruwalla (India), Kwame Dawes (Ghana/Jamaica), Kendel Hippolyte (St. Lucia), Medbh McGuckian (Ireland), Sean O'Brien (United Kingdom), Niyi Osundare (Nigeria), Robyn Sarah (Canada), Nicolette Stasko (USA/Australia), and Chase Twichell (USA). The prize is $20,000 this year—still very su...

I am very pleased to note that several very fine Canadian poets were today shortlisted for Canada's major national poetry prize - and that they are all, oddly, and for the first time on such a list, friends of mine.  Gosh, I want them all to win! The Canada Council for the Arts announces the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Award finalists  October 2, 2012 |  News Release Get ready to read the 2012 Governor General’s Literary Awards finalists.  The Canada Council’s peer assessment committees selected this year’s finalists out of approximately 1,700 submitted books, choosing works that tell readers compelling stories about themselves and the world around them. “Literary excellence is what drives the Governor General’s Literary Awards,” said Robert Sirman, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts. “This year’s shortlisted books put the creative talent of our authors, translators and illustrators front and centre.  They inspire readers to ...

Great news.  This year's Forward Prize has gone to three very deserving poets who work in the lyric spaces between innovation and lucidity, and who are all emotive and fiercely intelligent about language; at times, philosophical.  Denise Riley 's long poem is one of the great meditations on loss and language in the English canon; I was priviliged to be shown an early draft of it before publication, and she read it for the Oxfam series in Marylebone, as well. Sam Riviere , who is studying at my alma mater, UEA, is one of the best young British poets, and his debut with Faber is top notch.  Meanwhile, Jorie Graham is one of the most original American thinkers in poetry at the moment, so well done to her, as well.  Eyewear will have reviews of these collections this autumn, if all goes well.

The Manchester Poetry Prize 2012 First prize: £10,000 Deadline for entries: 31 st August 2012 Judges: Ian Duhig, Francis Leviston, Adam O’Riordan Under the direction of UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University has launched the third Manchester Poetry Prize – a major literary competition celebrating excellence in creative writing. The Manchester Poetry Prize is open internationally and will award £10,000 to the writer of the best portfolio of three-to-five poems new submitted. The competition is open to both new and established writers aged 16 or over; there is no upper age limit. Work can be in any style, and on any subject, but must be new writing, not previously published elsewhere. You can find full terms and conditions of entry on the Competition website, where you can also enter online, or download a printable entry pack for postal submission:  http://www.manchesterwrit...

Commonwealth?  Not, apparently, for Salt's esteemed Crashaw Prize.... check out the rules, as below: " The Crashaw Prize is an international annual prize for a first collection of poetry. Entrants must not have been published before, and must permanently reside in the UK & Ireland, the USA, or Australia & New Zealand. For more information please visit: http://thecrashawprize.co.uk/ " Eyewear wonders why Canada, or indeed, South Africa, are excluded from this otherwise rather inclusive list of countries... might be an oversight worth correcting with a new poetry lens.

Announcing the £2,500 Sixth Annual Troubadour International Poetry Prize Judged by Jane Draycott & Bernard O'Donoghue (with both judges reading all poems submitted) Prizes: 1st £2,500, 2nd £500, 3rd £250 plus 20 prizes of £20 each plus a Spring 2013 Coffee-House-Poetry season-ticket and a prizewinners' Coffee-House Poetry reading with Jane Draycott & Bernard O'Donoghue on Mon 26th Nov 2012 for all prize-winning poets Submissions: by Mon 15th Oct 2012 Judges: - Bernard ODonoghue (b. Cullen, County Cork) is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; a former Reader at Magdalen College and Fellow and tutor at Wadham College, Oxford, he co-edits the Oxford Poets (Carcanet) series with David Constantine. 'Farmers Cross' (Faber, 2011) was shortlisted for the 2011 T S Eliot Prize following poetry collections which include 'Poaching Rights' (1987), 'The Absent Signifier' (1990), 'The Weakness' (1991), 'Gunpowder' (1995,...

The intervention of Sir Andrew Motion , a fine poet, offering his alternate Booker shortlist, and his scolding of the current panel of judges, along with many other noises off, and the launching of a new prize, is all nonsense.  As everyone who reads in the UK now knows, there is a supposed tension between a "good read" and "literary excellence", and this year's cohort of judges, led by a former spymaster, apparently tipped over in favour of the readability factor.  Perhaps.  But it seems to be a form of backseat-driving, if not a more questionable form of arm-twisting, to so vocally contest the judging panel's decisions.  The judges were, after all, acting in good faith when asked to judge, and have no doubt done their best, according to the rules. Sir Andrew has not read all the submitted books, has he?  Indeed, there is a form of Establishment fever in this - a panic that several of the books are by "unknown" authors (in fact, Canadians) - and...

The news today in Poetry UK is of the Forward Prize shortlists, for best collection, best first collection, and best poem.  You can read the full lists here .   Eyewear is particularly pleased to see Geoffrey Hill, R.F. Langley, Nerys Williams, D Nurkse, Jo Shapcott and Alan Jenkins named. It seems a particularly wide-ranging, inclusive year, as far as these things go.

Eyewear congratulates this year's Eric Gregory winners   Niall Campbell, Tom Chivers, Holly Hopkins, Martin Jackson   and   Kim Moore.   Also, bravo to Laura Barton for her win of the Betty Trask award.  Also, good to see Lachlan Mackinnon winning a Cholmondeley.

Eyewear has just returned from the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets, supported by the Michael Marks Charitable Trust, and the British Library.  One can hardly think of better supporters for such an ephemeral and perishable form as the chapbook, or as they tend to call it in the UK, pamphlet.  More people should attend this event, it is in its way as thrilling as the T.S. Eliot Prize - it buzzes with enthusiasm for the subterranean, the innovative, and the unsung.  This year, the pamphlets in contention were Neil Addison 's Apocapulco (Salt); Simon Armitage 's The Motorway Service Station as a Destination in its Own Right (Smith/Doorstep); Olive Broderick 's Darkhaired (Templar); Sean Burn 's mo thunder  from Knives, Forks and Spoon; Ralph Hawkins for Happy Whale Fat Smile (Oystercatcher); James McGonigal 's Cloud Pibroch (Mariscat); and The Lotion by Sophie Robinson (Oystercatcher). Cloud Pibroch won; it is beautifully printed 32 page collectio...

Eyewear will be six in June, the six month. Send new unpublished poems in English to toddswift at clara dot co uk marked Eyewear Poetry as word docs. One poem per poet. Poems should be no longer than 36 lines long, and use the word six in the poem. The competition will be judged by Irish poet Barbara Smith , a regular contributor to Eyewear. First prize will be £6 and publication online at Eyewear. Open to everyone in the world. Submissions must be received no later than the last day in June by midnight.

Montreal, a 400-year-old-plus city of several million souls, the home of the great wave of Canadian modernist poets of the 1940s and 1950s, as well as legends like Leonard Cohen , has a strong tradition of poetry, and a number of vital small poetry presses.  It also is enriched by its bilingualism, a superb creative writing program at Concordia University, some lively reading events and festivals, and an international vibe at the cultural cross-roads of Europe and America. Yet it is rarely these days at the forefront of poetic matters in Canada - Toronto tends to hold the keys to the kingdom.  So it comes as a welcome surprise to learn that Andrew Motion will be judging the world's biggest cash prize for best single poem - called The Montreal Prize .  I have some problems with poetry competitions (perhaps the biggest question being, do such occasions ever actually locate the most strange, original or unsettling works, or the ones that rather confirm already-establ...

Announcing... THE GERALD LAMPERT & PAT LOWTHER AWARDS SHORTLIST April 4, 2011, Toronto: The League of Canadian Poets is pleased to announce the shortlist for its 2011 Pat Lowther and Gerald Lampert Memorial Awards. Congratulations to the authors for their fine work and many thanks to the jurors for their hard work on this year's awards. Winners of these awards will be announced during a special ceremony at the annual LCP Poetry Fest and Conference to be held at The Courtyard by Marriott Downtown Toronto (475 Yonge Street) on June 11, 2011. Gerald Lampert Award Shortlist: The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award is given in the memory of Gerald Lampert, an arts administrator who organized authors' tours and took a particular interest in the work of new writers. The award recognizes the best first book of poetry published by  a Canadian in the preceding year. The award carries a $1,000 prize. The Crow's Vow by Susan Briscoe (Signal Edition of Vehicule Press) That...

The good news is that a poet has won the Costa Book of the Year prize two years in a row - for the best popular book of the year, beating out impressive novels and non-fiction.  The poet this year is Jo Shapcott - a brilliant and likeable figure who is widely admired in British poetry circles - for her first collection in a decade, Of Mutability , which, among other things, explores surviving breast cancer.  An important subject, a fine poet, and superb poems.  So, hats off to Shapcott.  The only question is - why wasn't such a loved and admired book on the ten-strong TS Eliot shortlist?  The answer, I suppose, is that the judging of poetry remains an art, not a science - so it is good that poetry prizes are as various as the poets they seek to support.  Are they as numerous as poets, too?  Almost.

Congratulations to London-based poet Richard Meier for winning the first Picador Prize for Poetry.  Meier beat out other highly-touted (and many better known) poets to achieve the honour of having his debut collection come out from this important press.  His book will be widely anticipated.

Wonderful news - Stefan Mohamed , just-graduated from Kingston University, has won a major literary prize in Wales .   Elyse Fenton of American has won the over-all Dylan Thomas prize.

This just in - the Man Booker shortlist has been announced, and it includes Damon Galgut , one of my favourite writers - as well as other leading lights, and a few surprises, especially the absence of The Slap .  I am pleased to see Howard Jacobson here - he is a brilliantly funny writer.  C will likely win, from what I have heard.  Have it at home, yet to dip in fully.

The shortlists for the 19 th annual Forward Prizes for Poetry, one of the UK ’s most valuable poetry prizes, was announced yesterday. "On the Best Collection short list t wo former category winners compete with poets on the list for the first time, while the short list for Best Single Poem brings many new faces to the fore."  It is especially good to see the small presses represented, as well as Lachlan Mackinnon , there - he's long been an Eyewear favourite.  However, it seems that for the main category, it may go to either Sampson or Shapcott .  Of course, one can never rule out the other strong contenders, especially Heaney .  I have yet to read all the debut collections, must get those. "The shortlists are: The Forward Prize for Best Collection £10,000 – sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation Seamus Heaney         Human Chain              ...

Poet Philip Gross is becoming something of the dark horse worth placing a bet on.  Having won the UK's top poetry prize back in January, for one book, T he Water Table , he has now won Welsh Book of the Year, for another - this time the captivating I Spy Pinhole Eye (perfect for the themes of this blog) - published by vital up-and-coming small press Cinnamon.  The book has photographs by Simon Denison .  More power to Mr Gross.  He's one of the very best poets Britain has on tap right now.  Order this book and see what the fuss is about.